FOR ME AND MY GAL

• After a late-night cup of coffee, vaudevillians Jo Hayden and Harry Palmer sit at a piano and work a song. Moments later, Jo realises she’s found exactly what she wasn’t looking for: a partner. And with JUDY GARLAND as Jo and GENE KELLY as Harry, the partnership isn’t just ideal. It’s a film fan’s dream come true. Kelly debuts and Garland dazzles in this Busby Berkeley-directed tale of a song-and-dance pair who take on tank towns, tough times and World War I while struggling for show-biz success. A hit parade of era tunes paces the film, including the wowser Ballin’ the Jack and the sweetly harmonised title tune. Bursting with vitality and old-fashioned charm, For Me and My Gal is for the ages.

THE HARVEY GIRLS

• Vittles, songs and dance are amply ladeled out when JUDY GARLAND headlines The Harvey Girls, a joyous musical slice of Americana celebrating the restaurants that brought extra helpings of civilisation to Old West rail passengers. Highlights include Garland holding saloon patrons at jittery gun-point to retrieve stolen beef-steaks, RAY BOLGER’S loose-limbed comic hoof-ing, VIRGINIA O’BRIEN’S sure-shot comic timing, ANGELA LANSBURY’S stylish wickedness as a saloon singer and the On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe romp (nabbing it the 1946 Best Song Academy Award®) that’s “deservedly famous, one of the most triumphant sequences in screen-musical history” (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker). All aboard!

IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME

• In the Good Old Summertime – a tale of squabbling music-shop clerks who don’t know they’re romantic pen pals – shares a celebrated movie lineage that includes James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in The Shop Around the Corner and Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail. In between those two, JUDY GARLAND and VAN JOHNSON had mail plus gold old tunes evoking an era of strawboaters and silvery moons.Sparked by Garland’s comedic zest and musical appeal, this confection is “one of the sweetest, most unpretentious entertainments of 1949” (Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical). It’s also a nostalgic farewell and a sunny hello. BUSTER KEATON appears in his final film for the studio he first joined in 1928. And LIZA MINNELLI, all of 18 months young, makes her debut in the finale.

LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY

• It’s almost time for the big Christmas Dance, and Andy Hardy has a new tuxedo and opera hat to wear to the event and a $20 jalopy to take him there. Now all he needs is a date. Problem is Andy has two gorgeous dates lined up. And a third, a new girl next door named Betsy, is also aching to go.MICKEY ROONEY plays ball-of-fire Andy for the fourth of 17 times (16 features, one short). JUDY GARLAND (who also sings three tunes) makes her first of a series of appearances as bright, level-headed Betsy Booth. ANN RUTHERFORD reprises her role as Andy’s steady gal Polly. And LANA TURNER plays high-maintenance-but-worth-it Cynthia. Which of the three girls goes to the dance? Find out when Love Finds Andy Hardy.

A STAR IS BORN

• A Star Is Born marked JUDY GARLAND’s return to movies after a four-year absence, director George Cukor’s first musical and first colour film, and a showcase for great Harold Arlen/Ira Gershwin songs in state-of-the-art stereo. Garland is singer Esther Blodgett, an undeniable talent on the rise. She catches the eye of Norman Maine (JAMES MASON), an alcoholic actor in career decline. Their intense love transforms them both. Only one will survive Hollywood’s slings and arrows.Shortened after its premiere, the movie underwent one rebirth in 1983 when film historian Ronald Haver found almost all the cut sequences and supervised a reconstruction to near its original length. Its new rebirth is this digital transfer from a refurbished element, with revitalised digital audio and incorporating picture and musical material recently uncovered. Star always had a shine to it. Now watch it sparkle as never before.

THE WIZARD OF OZ

• We click our heels in anticipation. There’s no place like home and no movie like this one. From generation to generation, The Wizard of Oz brings us together – kids, grown-ups, families, friends. The dazzling land of Oz, a dream-come-true world of enchanted forests, dancing scarecrows and singing lions, wraps us in its magic with one great song-filled adventure after another.Based on L. Frank Baum’s treasured book series, The Wizard of Oz was judged the best family film of all time by the American Film Institute. And this never-before-seen restoration looks and sounds better than ever. We invite you to embark for the Emerald City on the most famous road in movie history. Dorothy (Judy Garland), Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), Tin Woodman (Jack Haley) and Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) await you on the Yellow Brick Road and Over the Rainbow.

ZIEGFELD GIRL

• An elevator operator, a wife of a struggling concert violinist, a born-in-a-trunk vaudevillian: they’re three different women on three different paths of life, yet they soon share one dream: to become a Ziegfeld Girl. LANA TURNER, HEDY LAMARR and JUDY GARLAND play the respective three trying for stardom in this sumptuous extravaganza. JAMES STEWART adds to the star wattage, playing the jilted truck-driving beau of Turner’s footlight diva. And legendary innovator Busby Berkeley brings his imaginative camerawork and pacing to numbers that include Garland’s massively scaled and calypso-infused Minnie From Trinidad, plus a lavish, showgirl-revue finale that reprises the rhapsodic You Stepped Out of a Dream. Sweet dreams, movie fans.